For managers and team leaders

Practical guides for leaders who want a team that cares

Whether you lead five people or fifty, inside a large organisation or a growing one, these guides cover the everyday things that decide whether people bring their best to work: trust, direction, values, strengths and how you handle pressure.

Start with the engagement guide

The idea behind every guide: put people first and the results will follow. Engagement isn't built by programmes or perks. It's built in the everyday relationship between a leader and their team, which is why the manager accounts for at least 70% of the difference in engagement between teams.1

Employee engagement

What it is, what drives it, and what a team leader can do about it this week.

Employee engagement strategiesEight people-first strategies a manager can start this week. What is employee engagement?A plain-English definition and why it matters. Drivers of employee engagementThe everyday factors that move engagement up or down. How to improve employee engagementA 90-day plan for a team leader after the survey. Employee engagement ideasPractical team rituals that cost little or nothing. How to motivate employeesWhy you can't force motivation, and what works instead. Engagement and retentionWhy people leave managers, and how to keep them.

Building the team

The foundations of a team that performs well and holds together under pressure.

High-performing teamsWhat the best teams do differently. Team cultureBuilding a culture people want to belong to. Team visionTurning the strategy into a story your team cares about. Team charterAgreeing how your team will work together. Team resiliencePreparing a team for when things go wrong.

Leading people

How you show up as a leader, at any level of the organisation.

Human-centred leadershipLeading people as people, not resources. Accountability in the workplaceOwnership without a blame culture.
Be More Human book cover

Built from the book Be More Human

Every guide draws on Be More Human: Rethinking the Rules of High-Performance Teamwork by Caspar Craven, alongside published research from sources such as Gallup, McKinsey and peer-reviewed journals. Where we quote research, we link to it.

About the author

Sources

The stories and practical ideas on this page come from the book. The figures in the blue boxes come from the published research below.

  1. Beck, R. and Harter, J. (2015). Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement. Gallup Business Journal.